Review of Teas Etc. Golden Monkey

Steep Time: 4-5 minutes
Steep Temperature: 212 Degrees

Golden Monkey is a Black Tea from Yunnan, China. This tea from Teas. Etc won 2nd Place at the 2009 World Tea Championship in the “Signature Famous Teas – Hot Tea Class”.

The dry leaves of this tea are very beautiful, and have a fuzzy,soft look to them and are yellow golden in color. This color changes to a reddish brown hue after being steeped. The liquor is smooth and has a medium mouth feel, right in between thin and thick. This tea’s liquor was quite spicy, reminiscent of black pepper,cinnamon and a tiny bit of cocoa. Cocoa isn’t a dominant note, but it is there. I don’t seem to taste a maltiness, which is commonly found in black teas from the Yunnan Province, but this doesn’t take away from the tea one bit.  There is a sweet, almost caramel finish on this tea as well. I steeped this 3 times so far today, and each infusion brought on different, unique notes, and they were all great. Within these 3 steeps, I found some floral aspects in the tea, that really paired great with the spiciness of the tea.